


warts and all

by Noxchild



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Akekita, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kitaake, M/M, Sexual Humor, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 23:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15326628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noxchild/pseuds/Noxchild
Summary: "Firstly," Yusuke begins. "I want you to know that your scars are nothing to be ashamed of."Semi-supine on the couch before his canvas, his muse lifts a brow and says, "If this is your idea of getting me into a proper head space, you're not doing a very good job.""I merely wish to reassure you, Goro.""Oh," says Goro, hand propped up against his cheek in as casual a pose as he can manage while wholly nude. "That I know, Yusuke. That I know."(Or: Yusuke Kitagawa sketches his boyfriend,)





	warts and all

"Firstly," Yusuke begins. "I want you to know that your scars are nothing to be ashamed of."  
  
Semi-supine on the couch before his canvas, his muse lifts a brow and says, "If this is your idea of getting me into a proper head space, you're not doing a very good job."  
  
"I merely wish to reassure you, Goro."  
  
"Oh," says Goro, hand propped up against his cheek in as casual a pose as he can manage while wholly nude. "That I know, Yusuke. That I know."  
  
Goro never uses his first name when annoyed, so Yusuke immediately stops worrying and starts sketching. He's had many muses over the years, largely in his own circle of friends and acquaintances, but few are willing to indulge his more eccentric requests as Goro is. Well, being painted nude is not what Yusuke considers _eccentric_ \- but other people do. Alas.  
  
"Honestly," Goro says, lips quirking up fondly. "You have no idea how good you have it."  
  
"Mm." Yusuke hums. "I've been told that quite often."  
  
A laugh, slightly insecure. Goro's legs are crossed with the appearance of lanquidity, but the goosebumps on his skin are visible even from here. "Really? From whom?"  
  
"Ann. She was shocked when I showed her the last piece we'd worked on together."  
  
“We?” Goro’s nose wrinkles. "You say that as if I'm your partner-in-crime and not your tragic helper monkey."  
  
"My dear," he says, unable to help himself, "is there a difference?"  
  
Many people do not believe Goro when he says that Yusuke is the devil. Ridiculous, yes; whimsical, entirely; passionate, without doubt. Goro never seems to quite believe it either; he takes every comment Yusuke makes of this caliber with a disbelieving huff.  
  
"Did you just - " he says, then lapses into the kind of silence that promises payback, or revenge. When it comes to Akechi Goro, the distinction is vital.  
  
"I tease because I love," Yusuke says. Goro's collarbone is exquisite, running from shoulder to shoulder in an unbroken line save for the dip. On more than one occasion Yusuke's placed his thumb there, marveled at the hollow, the gap.  
  
(He's placed other parts of himself there too, like his mouth, and ah - )  
  
Every aspect of Goro is beautiful, but that divine space where neck meets shoulder, the smooth pale skin that's unmarked most of the time, like a canvas waiting for its first dip of the brush - _that_ part he loves the most.  
  
Oh no, he thinks dimly. Now isn't the time to get excited. Not yet.  
  
Despite the blushing crimson staining his cheeks like a smear of lipstick, Goro studies him too. "You tease," he says with the finality of a philosopher, "because you're cruel."  
  
"Cruelty," Yusuke says easily back, "was making Akira haul my art supplies everywhere for me when we were in high school when I could have done it myself."  
  
"The poor bastard."  
  
"He loved it."  
  
"He loved _something_."  
  
"Goro! What are you implying?"  
  
"I'm implying," his lover says with closed eyes now, "that my side is stiff."  
  
He hasn't even gotten started. "Patience."  
  
"Is agony. I wish you'd let me eat first."  
  
"But darling - " Yusuke sketches as he speaks, draws fine lines here and there, for despite his grumbling Goro is still as can be, even if his hair is falling into his eyes. "I only wanted to draw you while you looked your best."  
  
"I went on a ten kilometre run this morning. Looking my best is not my highest priority at the moment."  
  
What a peacock. Sometimes Yusuke wonders _why_ he loves this man - then the answers come flooding like the breaking of a dam. Goro wakes up early to make a traditional breakfast for them, even when he's the type to nibble on an apple on his own because Yusuke might perish otherwise. Goro has perfected the style of looking adorable in sweaters of every pattern, even when he's irritated. Oh, _especially_ when he's irritated. Yusuke still remembers Ryuji gifting Goro a hideous red-green-purple plaid monstrosity as a birthday gift one year - the things you buy when you only have fifteen hundred yen on you and ten minutes in a thrift store to do the shopping. Goro had accepted said gift with the pearliest smile Yusuke had ever seen him wear, then sent Ryuji a selfie of him wearing it the day after. To be polite, you see.  
  
The next time Yusuke saw that sweater, it had been systematically reassembled into the kitchen rags, and Goro kindly informed him that from now on Ryuji was getting a gift card for _his_ birthdays, and nothing else.  
  
(Ryuji was the kind of person who not only didn't understand that kind of subtle slighting, but also appreciated the practicality of cold hard cash in one format or another over some useless trinket he'd have no reason to keep save for friendship's sake alone. That was the nature of Akechi Goro's shade: to feel both a mild personal satisfaction at whatever devious thing he'd contrived for a particular situation, while leaving the target feeling as if they were somehow better off for his interference. People were always vaguely thankful he was in their lives, even if they could never quite articulate _why_.)  
  
Thinking on this makes Yusuke smile without the mildly horny energy that's been circulating in his core the past while - first, the suggestion, then Goro giving him a suspicious glance as he peeled off his clothes in as unsexy a manner as possible, then the posing to retain his modesty, as if Yusuke hasn't seen and touched every part of him by now -  
  
Kitagawa Yusuke is a degenerate. But then, most great artists are, when painting the ones they love.  
  
"What would you like to eat then, after?" he says, because saying _that_ aloud might either make Goro melt or induce him to find the nearest sharp object to huck at his fingers.  
  
"Thai," Goro says reflexively. "I'd like some green curry."  
  
"And?"  
  
"Spring rolls."  
  
"And...?"  
  
"Would you like me to order for you as well?"  
  
"If you'd like," Yusuke says, pouting when Goro laughs. "What?"  
  
"I think one of everything on the menu will do. Don't you agree?"  
  
"How droll of you to make fun of my appetite." He holds his tongue in between his teeth. "I'm giving you a third arm just for that."  
  
"Better than a - " Goro begins, then stops.  
  
Yusuke does not. "What, my dear? Go on."  
  
"No thank you. I've lost interest."  
  
" _I_ haven't."  
  
"Yusuke."  
  
" _Goro_ ," he says, cracking only after Goro does. "Really. What's the point of being vulgar if you can't carry through?"  
  
"I," says Goro with a sheen in his eyes that promises waterfalls if pressed further, "have a reputation to maintain."  
  
"As a coquette?"  
  
Goro makes a strangled noise in his throat. The colour on his face creeps downward. His whole body's made that transformation before, mostly in situations involving silken ropes and his arch nemesis, humility. But again, Yusuke. Not yet.  
  
"As a man of - of dignity," Goro says, regaining control. His form is looser now, his legs not crossed as tightly. There are times when he's more luxuriant than a panther in his body, and proud, but one in the afternoon in a brightly lit studio with the scent of oils and pastels and paint all around him isn't it. Still, he's enchanting as ever, and Yusuke only wants to do the best by him.  
  
Even if, thinking back on the other paintings of Goro in this nature, the works that come by as aren't exactly for public consumption. Maybe when Goro's sixty, or Yusuke is dead. Yes, that's more likely. Besides, there are some memories he wants to keep for himself.  
  
Still, showing Ann the painting of Goro with the red kimono hanging down his back - showing the smooth curvature of his spine, the shy and sensual glance he cast over his shoulder, the Western-style pearl earring - probably hadn't been a bad idea.

Probably.  
  
She didn't take a photo, at least.  
  
"You happen to be very dignified right now," is what Yusuke says, and lets his pencil come to a stop.  
  
"Warts and all?" Goro says, and despite the stifled laughter only moments before, his eyes are warm. Like cognac, like rubies. The colour of his gaze changes daily, but never the effect it has on Yusuke's ailing heart.  
  
"You have no warts. None at all."  
  
"How could I not?" Goro's tone is curious. They've had this conversation a hundred times before, but each time it takes on a different implication, a different question.  
  
This time he's asking: _are you saying I'm perfect now?_  
  
Yusuke will probably never be able to answer something like that to his lover's satisfaction, because despite his audacious personality, his loving soul, Goro enjoys fretting about himself, about the person he used to be and the person he _could_ be if he stops making breakfast in the morning, stops accepting poorly thought out if well-meaning gifts with a smile and a playful rejoinder, stops stripping for Yusuke in the middle of the day and posing for him for nearly two hours straight. Being an adult feels like that. And despite his own infamy, Yusuke _does_ know what tact is, and deploys it when necessary.  
  
"Well..." he says, pondering his words. "Remember what I said before? At the beginning?"  
  
"What? Oh." Goro's nose flares. It has a cute shape when aggravated, like the rest of him. "My scars."  
  
He doesn't have many, but the few he does are rare and striking. Goro always regards them with a shame he's never been able to repress like he does so much else - the odd lines on his lower back that could have never been conceived via accident - the outline of a pinkish imprint on his left foot, the memory on the back of his calves. To most people they're nearly invisible, only worth the mildest of commentary. To most people they're not a topic of fascination - or anxiety - at all.  
  
Yusuke has borne scars too. But his always faded with time - blame his genetics, his seemingly infallible skin. The lack of evidence was never something to be proud of, especially when child services came calling. But at the very least they don't constantly remind him of who he used to be after he's ostensibly left those years behind.  
  
Goro too, isn't the kind to be shaped by his past or let it define him. But things are hard to forget when they don't want to be forgotten. It's only human to resent the reminder, and when people say you're better off as a result, well....  
  
"They're beautiful," Yusuke says. Goro huffs again, turns his face away a centimetre so he doesn't look like he's hiding, even though he's hiding. "You know I think that."  
  
"So long as you don't think they have a purpose for being," his lover says. "I think we're fine."  
  
They are.  
  
(After all, they understand each other.)  
  
"I feel peckish," Yusuke says suddenly, getting up and stretching. "Don't you?"  
  
"What, now?" Goro's mouth is agape. "I've been doing this for barely ten minutes - "  
  
"We'll finish later."  
  
"You mean _after_ my stomach is bloated from lunch - "  
  
"Nonsense." Yusuke collects Goro's clothes from a nearby chair, brings them over to Venus himself. Venus is indolent, and gazing up as if posing nude was _his_ idea.  
  
(Sometimes it is. But not today.)  
  
"Let's have some green curry, darling," he says, and helps him up.  
  
"Don't eat all my spring rolls again," Goro says. "This is your final warning."  
  
"They just look so much tastier on your plate," Yusuke says defensively. "You can't blame a man for being curious."  
  
"I can, and I will," his lover says, and pecks him on the mouth. "Speaking of," eyeing Yusuke carefully. "You still have paint on one of your eyebrows. From last night."  
  
He touches one brow, then the other, and sure enough feels the unusual dryness there, the crack of tension in his skin. A chip of paint comes away. It's green. "Darling," he says, heartbroken. "I ran errands earlier. You let me go _out_ like this."  
  
"Serves you right," says Goro, and backs up against the sofa - and laughs - and _shrieks_ when Yusuke goes after him in retaliation. "Are you aware," he howls as slender fingers find his sides, "that I'm still naked? This isn't fair at all!"  
  
"Coming from you, brigand?" Yusuke says. "I'll have none of it. Forfeit!"  
  
"Not on your _life_ , Kitagawa-san - "  
  
As it turns out, lunch can wait a little longer.

**Author's Note:**

> If this fic gave you a chuckle or smile, please comment & kudos <3 Feel free to take this as a part of the How to Lean into Paradise AU or just something on its own. Either way, Goro and Yusuke being cute makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy too :3


End file.
